Yahoo! Mail (shortened to Y! Mail) is a free web mail provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997 and serves over 280 million users as of 2009. It is currently the largest web-based email service, followed closely by its competitor Windows Live Hotmail.

Currently, Yahoo! offers two versions of Yahoo! Mail: an Outlook-like Ajax interface powered by Yahoo!'s Zimbra ntroduced in 2007, as well as the traditional static-web-page "Yahoo! Mail Classic," which continues the availability of the simpler 1997-2006 interface for the brand's considerable installed base of users. In early 2008, Yahoo! started offering unlimited mail storage even to its non-paying users, in response to heated competition in the free-web mail market segment.

On June 27, 2009, Yahoo! Messenger was integrated with Yahoo! Mail Beta. This means that Messenger and Mail are together at one place, allowing to connect instantly with friends that are online, switch seamlessly between email and chat, with no download or setup required. This new feature is now available for Mail Classic.

Howlsthunder: #yahoo_mail This used to be my mail client of choice until Gmail came out. Now I have slowly been shifting all my Yahoo mail over to Gmail.

Basically, Yahoo mail feels bloated and cumbersome. It takes longer to load than Gmail and its menus are difficult to navigate. The spam filters aren't as good, either, and I now prefer Gmail's nested conversation way of dealing with multiple replies to the traditional "view each message individually". Still, I would use Yahoo over Hotmail any day, given the choice. Apr 16, 08